Introduction to Tourism Satellite Accounts

Abstract

While tourism appear to be a fun topic to study in general, tourism is tough to measure as an industry. Tourism emerged as a viable industry a little bit too late to be included in the system of national accounts. Therefore, we have to work around the established national accounting systems to measure it as accurate as possible, while tourism researchers must pay respect to the existing accounting system of the world. Tourism Satellite Accounts (TSA) is a de-jure measure to record activities of tourism as an industry, and it should be emphasized that TSA is not a modelling but accounting to record annual activities of tourism as an industry, similar to income statement (profit and loss statement). In that regard, any attempts by academics to simulate the TSA is just a wrong notion in light of the fundamental spirit of TSA.